


i'm watching everyone i love drowning in the sound

by quietdown



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Gen, Genosha, Grief/Mourning, Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Holidays, Judaism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 06:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietdown/pseuds/quietdown
Summary: Carmen and Kitty vignette on their relationship with Erik Lehnsherr after his passing.





	i'm watching everyone i love drowning in the sound

**Author's Note:**

> [i](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB9I_2K0jVI). song

Teri gets pregnant when he’s 18-she’s twenty-one and he can’t even drink back home-but he can certainly drink in the Land, thank-ya-_aaaaaaaand_ that colors the following six years of his life in a way that his compatriots can’t relate to.   
  
They’re risk-takers, jump-out-of-the-boat and bury yourself under the ocean and lift up the floor earthquakes laughter screaming jumping silence-silence-silence _we are! people of silence! _something like seventy-four percent of their class drops it at _Nahal_, and Carmen _does not_, even when every part of his body is screaming.   
  
Kitty’s in her stomach running between countrylines and walking through the streets surrounded by COLOR RIOTOUS THOUGHTS (babies can hear your thoughts, right?) and megaphone-calls to prayer (_kumi'ori! there are angels who take turns in visiting you by night and by day_!)   
  
and Naomi’s a lifesaver, a little apartment away from the doldrums, sheltering her away. Once he jokes that she’ll be kept squirreled up in the _castle_ by Atlit, but she can’t very-well go to Haifa, so she settles down in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem with Naomi and hopes her fiance doesn’t get himself blown up. (_Bombs to the eyebrows, bombs to the teeth,_ oh-yeah, _great_, leave me a single mother on the opposite corner of the globe why don’t you.)   
  
The early years are chaotic-Kitty’s just turned six when her father finally comes home and _stays home_, less a shuffling of stacked-up I-94s and they have a proper wedding, and they’re called _Pryde_ now, and it’s fitting. It is. And it's also a _mistake_ on their forms that they're just too hectic to fix-holding her hand on the way to first grade and chattering to her about the magic in the trees.   
  
Brooklyn’s different but it’s not, it’s still color and screaming joy and honking frustration. It’s always been Kitty’s home, supported by Teri’s vast assortment of “helpful” relatives-and he has to learn it like a fish out of water. His own relatives deride him-_yerida,_ his mother had said. _Don’t worry, i’m just here to make money,_ he jokes whenever he enters an elevator and Teri smacks him upside the head every time. _HILARIOUS_, she groans. Eyeroll.   
  
So Teri works and Carmen stays at home, learns his daughter, too. Making the lost time fit together, teaching her how to read and cook and appreciate Turkish coffee and sitting her on his shoulders during services and chasing over-stuffed pigeons in the park. he teaches her the names of planets in Hebrew, _Kaiwan _and the morning-star _Hilel _and the dead-desert bloody _Ma'adim_. There’s something to be said for chaos.   
  
They meet Magneto at the EMJC in Midwood-correction, "_Erik_," he murmurs, a gentle huff that's strange on his severe features as Kitty grabs up at him with her tiny hands, and he places two larger, calloused-and-wrinkled over hers and wishes her a solemn, "_Shabbat shalom, chataltul._" And Carmen's wary, he's seen the newsreels, but Erik just sits in the back. Quiet and contemplative, and Kitty can't abide it, so now they carpool to synagogue with _Erik Lehnsherr, Mutant Freedom Fighter_.  
  
Kitty in all her infinite six years of wisdom deems him _Maggy!_ in her high-pitched voice, and Carmen has to laugh at how terribly off-put he is by it-but he doesn't correct her, and that means something. It takes a while for him to stop being outright suspicious; but children understand in wisdom what adults often analyze copiously for years. The questions may be complicated, but sometimes the answers are simple. Erik is friend-starved. He's so accustomed to fighting and activism and marching and leading that it's uneasy to just sit and contemplate. Carmen thinks he can relate.  
  
The invitation to _Rosh Hashanah_ comes from his lips, shocking-Erik's eyebrows fly into his mess of white curls, but he cordially accepts. This day-in-age, mutants are commonplace. Oh, still despised by many, and one must always be on their guard-but maybe now is the time to focus on friends instead of televised national debates.  
  
Of course, with the wisdom of childhood also comes the tactlessness. "What's that? _Ma ze?_" Kitty jabs her index finger into his inner-left wrist when his pressed-iron shirt rides up to reveal the fuzzy numerals emblazoned on wrinkled skin.  
  
Carmen swats her hand away with a sharp admonishment. "_Lo tit'arev!_" he hisses, and grimaces at their dinner companion. Teri, ever the grace of the household, runs her fingers through Kitty's hair and pulls her to her side when tears form in her eyes-so unaccustomed to the sudden, abrupt displeasure her father clearly has in her. He runs his hand across the back of his mouth and looks at Erik, only finding _him_ more amused than the rest of them.  
  
Great, now he's the idiot. She's _six_. She hardly pays attention during _shul_ and it's doubtful the topic would come up hushed between American children anyway, but all the same.  
  
"This is Hitler's phone number," Erik murmurs, voice never wavering from the warm tones it took with her. "It was given to me as a memento. When I was very young, a little older than you-" he taps her on the nose. "I was taken to a very bad place. Millions of people like us were murdered there, but I survived, because I was placed with a special group." His eyes flick up to Carmen. Teri doesn't know; she's indifferent to history-enough that it doesn't register, but somehow, and he is correct, he knows that Carmen will understand.   
  
His returning gaze says _that's the end of that anecdote_ and Erik's says _of course, I'm not a dolt._ It's a clash of understanding, rather than pity, that solidifies Erik's respect for this family.  
  
"This is called the Holocaust. You will learn more in your schooling. It happened because men in positions of great power decided that they did not like those who differed from them. They sought to blame us-the Jews-for their misfortunes."  
  
Her eyes are saucer-wide. "Will that happen to me?" she looks at Teri. "I'm Jewish! What about _aba_ and _ima_?"  
  
"It will never happen to you," Erik promises roughly. "I would never allow it."  
  
He returns to their home every year, for _Pesach_ and _Tishrei_, and it's by his hand Kitty learns to cook, and much to Carmen's-pride? Distaste? Wariness? Joy? Jewish emotions be complex-by his _mind_ she develops a _raucous_ rebellious streak through her teenage years, if jabbing a finger into his chest and ranting that he's _assigned cop at birth_ because _Jewish self-determination will always be an important ideal to hold, and it can coexist with trying to find a peaceful solution that minimizes harm to all parties_ which _sounds like imperialist rationalizations_-oh, brother-  
  
and he doesn't tell her he _magically quit_ the forces, either. If that's anything to go by. (Nevermind the center in Haifa which bares the Eisenhardt name.)  
  
Nor that he was _asked to leave, politely_. (He wasn't asked and it wasn't polite.) Even though she's old enough to _get on his nerves_, and it'd serve her bloody right! and it's Erik of all people who puts a hand on his arm and nods. Even though it's his _fault_, Carmen grumbles. It makes Erik's features part in a rare smile, eyes crinkling kindly. "I shall never apologize for ensuring Katherine possesses a healthy distrust of those in power. However..." his tongue clicks. "She's young. Nuances are often lost upon the young."  
  
"We turned them away, you know," Carmen sighs, leaning over the railing, a cigarette stuffed between his lips. "They weren't _Jewish enough_, so they got to-what-starve? We abolish the death penalty because of _pikuach nefesh_ and then insist that those who have been practicing Judaism for centuries in their communities-who are being _actively persecuted for it_-don't meet our _brilliant criteria_. And then they tell me to shut up, keep my head down, and follow orders."  
  
"I am certain you well know my position on this matter." Erik gives his arm a squeeze. "You made a good choice. One day she will understand that."  
  
"Hell, _you_ tried with Genosha. You can't tell me you don't understand governance."  
  
"Of course, Carmen. But Genosha lacked the intricate geopolitical landscape of your home. Do not place an ideology above observed human suffering."  
  
"_Yerida_," he snorts.  
  
"I have been going down for a very long time," Erik smirks back.  
  
Life isn’t so simple anymore, the irony that he could've ever called it simple before-but he can still catch her on the winding path outside Xavier's, an old stuffed bear in hand, his limping gait and worn leather jacket familiar as his easy grin. “Kit-kat-” it’s warm. “Look who I found,” he waves it at her, and no, she’ll never live the name down. She’s going to be eighty-five and there they’ll be. She’s _kätzchen_ and _chataltul_, _the music awakened her spirits after lengthy rain, how wondrous is the place of mine-_  
  
The stuffed creature’s name is _Medusa_ for its bedraggled pipecleaner hair. he doesn’t say _I’m sorry about Erik. _He doesn't say _I'm sorry for your loss_ because it's not-only trite and not-only knows better, but because Kitty and Erik had a bond very few people understand, not as mutant-to-mutant, but as one Jew to another; while Magneto's off rioting for mutant rights, only a very few-Carmen included-knew the Erik Lehnsherr who came to their _seder _every year. He doesn't need to say _I'm sorry_. Loss is heavy in the air for them both.  
  
But they both know that’s the reason why he’s found her, today of all days, piteous child’s toy in hand.   
  
"That thing was his favorite," Kitty sniffs gratefully, and throws her arms around her father.


End file.
